Wednesday, August 24, 2016

How covering of Muslim women affects others

"Burkini" is all-covering swimming outfit beloved by fundamentalist Muslims. (Do you imagine staying in such a garb under the sun for hours? Or how it feels after swimming, wet all over your body, as if you have accidentally fallen in water with all your clothes on? Grrrrr!)

This summer, after France suffered three major Islamist terrorist attacks in a year and a half, various French resort municipalities ban burkini. As said David Lisnard, mayor of Cannes: "Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when
France and places of worship are currently the target of terrorist
attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order... I simply forbid a uniform that is the symbol of Islamic extremism..." His head of municipal services Thierry Migoule added: "We are not talking about banning the wearing of religious symbols on the
beach… But ostentatious clothing which refers to an allegiance to
terrorist movements which are at war with us."

The text below is from the Hill, by Hala Arafa, a retired news editor at the Arabic Branch of the Voice of America.

"The burkini is a toxic ideology, not a dress choice

It is very difficult to understand the uproar caused by the
French government’s decision to ban the burkini. This was a reaction to
the chaos and turmoil caused by the Islamic fundamentalist sect in the
Muslim world and in Europe.

The fundamentalists are the
ones who reject participation in the 21st century. They prefer to
isolate themselves in seventh century ideas and dress; despite that no
one is denying them the right to practice their religion in private.
They don’t have the right, however, to invade the public space and
impose their ideology and belief system represented by their dress.

Any
dress is a culmination of a social experience and a representation of
its core values. The fashion worn in the 21st century reflects the
progress of our thoughts on equality, human rights, and women’s rights.

Civilized nations worked very hard for centuries to achieve the freedoms
we enjoy today. The clothes worn by Muslim fundamentalist women are
based on seventh century beliefs. They say that a woman’s honor is
directly tied to her clothes and a man is not responsible for his
actions if he is tempted by a woman. This is an ideology that absolves
men from any responsibility of committing the crime of rape and blames
the victim for not protecting her honor by covering up.

This
old ideology was revived in the early 1980s by the introduction of
hijab, a seemingly innocuous piece of cloth, under the guise of modesty
and piety. It revived ideas of women’s servitude, promoted a rape
culture and led to the political and social instability we witness
today.

The hijab ideology is why young Muslims today think they
have the right to sexually assault uncovered women. This was
demonstrated by Muslim immigrants gang assaults in Cologne, Germany,
last January. Similar attacks happened in March in Sweden and other
European countries that took in Muslim immigrants.

To
say the burkini ban stifles cultural diversity is to focus on the
superficial garment, not the rape ideology it promotes. That also
ignores the deterioration in every aspect of social & political life
in the Muslim world since the introduction of this extremist ideology.
This isn’t a choice of dress. This is a choice of a very specific
ideology that has proven harmful to society.

To say the
ban limits their religious freedom is also an invalid argument.
Religious freedom means practicing religion in private without fear of
intimidation or reprisals. It doesn’t mean people are free to impose
their religious beliefs on others. Then of course the Islamic
fundamentalist claims that it is Islamophobia, an accusation that
assumes that they represent all of Islam & not merely one sect with
extreme behavior and ideas whose time had passed 1400 years ago.

The
French government’s ban finally shines the light on the glaring
contradictions between the fundamentalists’ words and actions. “Hijab”
means to cover/to hide. Yet, they want to participate in every aspect of
public life and invade every public domain. Since neither the hijab
nor the burkini is an invisibility cloak, we must wonder: Do they want
to hide and cover their women or are they using religion as a tool to
make unquestioned political/social gains?

If we are to
take into account the experience of the past 35 years in the
majority-Muslim countries, we must conclude that Islam is being used as a
means to an end. If the hijab or burkini had anything to do with
modesty or piety, the Islamic fundamentalists would have sought private
beaches, not insisted on forcing themselves on the public. But as they
did before, they want to become part of the accepted social scene and
part of the new norm of the society.

The French
government’s burkini ban, unlike Iranian laws that enforce hijab, takes
into account the experience in Muslim countries where the introduction
of a religious element into the public sphere led to the current strife.

The
ban removes an element that has proven to be a corrupting influence and morally destructive, unlike Iran where the law is based on an
untested extremist religious dogma. The ban takes into account the
effect of the Islamic fundamentalist ideology on future generations.

If
hijab becomes an accepted public phenomenon, a modern society cannot
teach its future generations that a woman’s dress is not an excuse for
rape.

Islamic fundamentalists should be allowed to
worship freely. Their beliefs must be properly defined as solely theirs.
The whole society and future generations must never regard them as
acceptable or allow them to become part of the shared common public
scene. All groups espousing ideas that veer off the accepted norms of a
society isolate themselves and practice their beliefs in private.
Nudists have private beaches. Islamic fundamentalists should not be any
different.

The burkini ban is an act of a socially
conscious, morally courageous and responsible government with extreme
prudence and futuristic foresight."

About Me

My name is Maya Markova. This blog is my little corner where I write about things that interest me, in as politically incorrect style as I like. I do not claim to be clever, good, free of prejudice and bigotry, broad-minded, enlightened, polite, attractive or superior in any other way. This is not a science blog and I write here what I like, not what people think a "scientist" should write. I try not to bore my readers but of course I cannot guarantee that what I am writing will be interesting for you.